In prior art, the designs of wheels for roller skates, have primarily aimed at providing a wheel which would allow the roller skating community to emulate the blade of an ice skate. Embodiments of this type are disclosed for example in U.S. Pa. Nos. 3,837,662 and 6,131,923. Thereby availing the performance repertoire of the ice skating community to the roller skating community. While the goal is laudable the results have always been short of the goal. Because the dynamic ambulatory conditions between a hard metal blade sliding against a smooth ice surface and a resilient plastic wheel rolling against a rough wooden floor are entirely different. The extent of this fundamental difference has up to now assigned roller skating to a very minor position in the eclectic skating world.
An alternative approach to the aforementioned are the example embodiments of U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,895,844 and 4,218,098. Although these wheels provide the essential transverse support to the ankle joint, they are mounted to the skating frame and truck in a flexible dual cantilever design. As deflection of a cantilever beam is exponentially related to the applied force, and their are four cantilever mounted wheels attached to each foot. The roller skater is therefore perpetually in an unstable dynamic ambulatory state. Thus the skater is denied a stable dynamic platform from which to launch into and land from versatile aerial vertiginous jumps. This limitation means that a roller skater""s access to the ice skating dynamic maneuver repertoire is severely limited.
Another critical unappreciated factor in the design of wheels for roller skates is that when the ankle joint has adequate transverse support and the rolling contact surface is concentrated in a single roller the range of motion of the foot can control how much of the contact surface is required for a given dynamic skating maneuver. And when this intuitive dexterous decision is aided by an isolation barrier within the covering of the skating contact roller, then the skater can utilize the inner half of the toe rollers for spinning and the whole surface for succesefully initialing and terminating various aerial vertiginous roller skating maneuvers. Such roller skating wheels in an in-line configuration will greatly increase the access that the roller skating community, has to the ice skating dynamic maneuver repertoire.
The present invention relates to wheels which are adapted to be used in roller skates, and particularly to roller apparatus which may be subjected to variable loads and shock forces. Like those encountered in executing the standard and expanded roller skating dynamic maneuver repertoire.
The primary object of this present invention is to provide a roller skating wheel that can be fabricated from low cost standard commercial parts, such as polyurethane tubing for the covering and nylon for the core, and yet provide an extended range of desirable operational advantages.
The wheel core has a groove at the longitudinal mid point which causes a diametrical concave point in the core""s covering.
The present invention provides support for each end of the shaft of the core""s encased ball bearings. This along with combining the rolling contact surface into a single surface at each contact point produces a stable dynamic ambulatory platform from which an expanded roller skating performance repertoire may be executed.
Along with the benefits of low cost and extended wheel covering wear life. It is a further object of the present invention is to provide a roller skate wheel which is easy to manufacture, assemble and to install in an in-line skate frame.